[Quest] Lost Singularity - Fimbulwinter

[Rafflesiac]

I am once again impressed that you successfully channeled your passion for a character into a supreme idea like this.

- - - Updated - - -

Also nuts, I'm kind of fond of Archer now. I'll hold off on voting for now.

[Lunasilverhart]

fuck if I know man everyone in the discord is making good arguments and I'm dumb as hell

So, my choice of team composition: Enheduanna, Sakura, Javier.

Everybody else... Option 6: Keep Archer from interfering, by any means necessary. Doesn't necessarily mean combat, but leaves it as an option if other methods fail.

[Rafflesiac]

Javier, Liria, Caster

4

[the god of world-0]

Javier, Sakura, Enheduanna

4

[Spartacus]

Javier, Liria, Caster

4

+1 with Raff for now.

[SpoonyViking]

Javier, Fiore, Enheduanna. Javier going is probably the best way to make sure Archer doesn't interfere, and hopefully Fiore can deduce "Marduk"'s true identity, enabling Enheduanna to free Seigi.

As for the rest, 5. Retreat to the church.

[Bird of Hermes]

I was dumb and just realised I forgot to actually vote.

Javier, Sakura, Enheduanna

4

[King Prussia]

Javier, Liria, Caster

4

+1. Caster is Love and deserves more screentime.

[Half-Blood Master]

Javier, Liria, Caster

4

+1. I have my misgivings about Liria's powers interaction with "Marduk" but I realized this is a chance for Caster to tease both Liria and Javier at the same time.
Also, as a kâlu priest with wisdom from the past she probably has the most chance to figure out mr bodyhopper.

[SpoonyViking]

Don't forget to also vote for what the ones left behind should do!

ETA: Oh, d'oh, I missed Rafflesiac's option also included that! Sorry, my bad.

[SleepMode]

Javier, Liria, Caster

4

+1

[Daneel Rush]

Beyond Their Sight – 11b

??????



Seigi Nomikata is fading away. Dispersing. Dissolving.

This is no real fault of the one who has taken over his body. It is the unintended consequence of once having used Isolde as a host: any further hosts after Hexensoldat II experience complete disconnection from their bodies and from the tangible cosmos. ‘Seigi’ is unable to perceive anything. He is unable to move. He is even denied thought. Trapped in the profound hollow of sightlessness beyond darkness, Seigi has nothing left but a vague sliver of self-awareness that only makes things worse.

He only ‘knows’ he is Seigi Nomikata, which only exacerbates the perception that ‘Seigi Nomikata’ is becoming nothing.

Unable to manifest himself outwards into the world defined by the Human Order, the thing that is left of Seigi Nomikata can only descend inwards and further away from the reality to which he once belonged. All the more distant, all the more nothing. Everything is metaphorical, for there is not an awareness of ‘descent’, or even a ‘bottom’ to descend to. Devoid of physicality, he is not really moving anywhere, yet he is unmistakably further and further away from where he should be. Devoid of inertia, yet he is unmistakably being pulled away from the world to which he rightfully belongs.

This is only natural, because he is not alone. He has never been alone.

For too long, he was ‘Seigi Nomikata’, the owner of ‘Seigi Nomikata’s body’, which happened to house a bunch of soul dregs as well, some larger than others, one very much larger—perhaps even more so than his own. In his current state, however, there is no longer a difference. He is just one in the group, and just like the rest, his individuality is eroding with every passing moment (in the ‘real’ world). For a moment, the amalgamate surged outwards, desirous to somehow claim the body relinquished by ‘Seigi Nomikata’. However, they found themselves unable to do so, for the body was already claimed by another.

How frustrating.

How vexing.

The mire of souls churns, twisting and turning like a washing machine, its whirling currents scouring that which remains of ‘Seigi Nomikata’, further denying him the privilege of individuality. They who should love him (?) do no longer recognize his primacy. He is just another one of them, to be rendered part of the amalgamate, indistinct and unrecognizable. To his misfortune, the ‘big sister’ who could have saved him is smothered within Enheduanna’s territory by bindings crafted many years ago.

It does not hurt, because he cannot feel. ‘Seigi Nomikata’ has nothing left but the realization that he is becoming less and less, ever closer to oblivion.

Naturally, there is no screaming in a world without sound.

*** ***

An Unknown Location in the city of Valparaíso



(BGM)

Elisabeth sleeps. It is the virtue of their homunculus bodies that allows them to find rest in this chilling weather with only some thick blankets for protection. Isolde watches her while seated on the edge of the bed, almost envious of the peaceful sight, even if they know it is a lie. Elisabeth cried herself to sleep, lost and confused. If she has managed to sink into deep slumber, it is likely a consequence of exhaustion rather than any degree of internal peace. Nonetheless, she makes for a lovely sight; a raven-haired sleeping beauty.

“Hmph.”

The sight brings a smile to Isolde’s face. No, it is not right to call it a smile.

Spoiler:

“Iiiiiiiiidiot.”

The twisted mockery dripping out of that word is all the more impressive in that it comes as nary a whisper. Pushing themselves off the bed, Isolde leaves the youngest of the ‘siblings’ to her final rest.

“Truly, there is nothing more pathetic than a fool who cannot tell left from right. What’s the point of being so gifted if she cannot even think for herself?”

Isolde’s twisted expression relaxes uncannily quickly. When they reach the nearest bathroom and stare at the mirror cracked by the low temperatures, it is a different Isolde that they see.



“She knows nothing and cannot do anything. I feel sorry for her.”



“She never made the effort to try anything else. She deserves no pity from us. She could have rewritten the entire story of this singularity with that eye of hers if she wanted, but she didn’t do a thing, just let herself be dragged along by anybody and everybody.”

Just thinking about it makes them seethe.

“Of the six of us, she’s the one who could’ve truly grasped freedom with her own two hands, and she didn’t even try. She’s as worthless as a sex doll without any holes. She’s like a little bird who laments being trapped in a cage while not realizing it’s been wide open the whole time.”



“She…just felt as trapped as the rest of us. She must understand her eye better than us; perhaps we are overestimating it—”



“Mother did not let Kammler and Wiligut lay a finger on her, but she didn’t seem to have a problem letting Wiligut impale our ass whenever he pleased. Why the fuck should we give a shit about that pretty doll?”

They snort.

“Well, at least now she’s gonna make herself useful.”



“I…wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

A hand reaches out, as if it could caress the cheek of the Isolde in the mirror.



“Hey. You’re not chickening out on me now, are you?” Their cheeky expression turns dead serious, if perhaps a little worried. “You know…”

They shake their head as their expression becomes tender and serene.



“No, it is nothing like that. We’ll have our wish fulfilled tonight. Right?”

The answer is interrupted by the distant sound of knocking on wood. It is an unnecessary gesture, for the main entrance to this house, like most wooden doors in this frozen city, has broken off its hinges. Nevertheless, Isolde walks over to greet the newcomer: their ally and the instrument of their triumph.

“Hey,” they call out. “So, what should we call you now?”

The initial response is a dark-sounding chuckle, as if the man had just heard a particularly mean joke.



“Right now, I am ‘Seigi Nomikata’,” declares the man as he strolls into the single-story house, paying no heed to the block of ice containing a woman covering her face with her arms, probably from pieces of broken glass after the front window shattered inwards. “However, the same thing as before happened.”

“So, you’re still ‘Isolde’,” posits the smirking blonde. The man nods.

“Your identity-stealing magecraft has completely changed the effect of my Noble Phantasm. I guess I should say ‘as expected of that woman’s creation’.”

“Hmph, you should be praising me, you tactless boor,” Isolde jokes with hands behind their head. “So, why did you move out of Wiligut, anyway? Switching back to a human must feel like a downgrade.”

Seigi’s (?) smirk grows just a little bit wider.

“You would think that, wouldn’t you? Madness Enhancement was too much of a liability, and it turns out this particular human is full of surprises. I think I got myself the best possible body I could’ve asked for in this frozen hellhole.”

“Really.” Isolde sounds skeptical, but they know better than to doubt ‘themselves’. “Well, I guess you’ve got the looks. Far from my type, tho.”

‘Seigi’ successfully holds back his laughter.

“That is a given. Now, where’s our little treasure?”

“Placidly sleeping like an idiot,” Isolde replies while gesturing in the direction of what must have been the main bedroom. The two walk past a pair of rocking chairs and a TV that will never show an image again, past family photos and a mediocre painting by the woman frozen near the entrance.

“Ah, there it is.” ‘Seigi’ speaks of the sleeping Elisabeth like one would of a dream car, or a particularly delicious-looking cake. Isolde spares only the barest of glances at the redhead’s back; even if they are all ‘Isolde’, there are few, very distinct differences between them. They stay beneath the doorframe, blocking this one route out of the room while ‘Seigi’ stands by the bed, looking down at the sleeping beauty.

“Well, as they say, no time like the present,” he declares, exchanging nods with Isolde before reaching out to the dark-haired homunculus. To Elisabeth’s credit, her sole uncovered eye jolts wide open when ‘Seigi’s’ hand looms over her face, but it is too little, too late.

(BGM)

“Nope, can’t let you do that,” ‘Seigi’ placidly scolds, grabbing her wrists before she can reach for her eyepatch to pull it off. “You may just be a woman, but even I have reason to be wary of that eye.”

Elisabeth tries to scream, but ‘Seigi’ pulls her right arm so that both it and his left arm smother her mouth.

“Now, now, no need for all that noise,” the man scolds in a condescending tone amidst muffled screams. “Come on, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

The woman shakes her head, tears already forming in her uncovered left eye. ‘Seigi’ rolls his eyes at the sight.

“Isolde, do something about this one’s mouth, would you?”

The blonde girl (?) grumbles but does as not-really-requested. Elisabeth struggles, but she cannot win a two-versus-one, and soon enough her arms are behind her back, held by ‘Seigi’, and a crude gag made from whatever clothes Isolde found in the bedroom’s drawers covers her mouth.

“So…we’re doing this right away? Really?” asks the second of the Hexensoldaten ‘siblings’.

“I haven’t lied to you, ‘Master’,” complains not-Seigi, that last word utterly devoid of deference. “I don’t need any wishes; I’ll just take the vessel after you’re done with it.”

Indeed, Javier Lucero and the others have shown a surprising lack of interest in the Holy Grail at the center of this entire crisis. Then again, without the minimum necessary information, it is unlikely they would have figured out the right questions to ask.

“Now, the problem is thar your creator must have definitely set up some kind of contingency against precisely this situation,” the man continues. “Some sort of trap that would trigger if we just kill her to bring out the true Grail.”

The reminder that her life is indeed about to be rendered null and void grants Elisabeth a second wind. ‘Seigi’ clicks his tongue as he has to push himself to overpower the desperate woman one more time.

“Like-I-said! We can do this the easy way or the hard way. And you really, really don’t want the hard way.”

Naturally, Elisabeth’s resistance cannot last forever. Her mind surrenders before her body does, her efforts becoming feebler with every passing moment without success. Soon enough, she allows herself to be pushed forward, quietly sobbing and glancing at Isolde, her sole eye pleading for mercy she will not receive from her ‘sibling’.

Eventually, they are standing in front of the same mirror Isolde was earlier using to…talk to themselves?

“I think you get what I want you to do, right?” The one in control of Seigi Nomikata’s body speaks quietly in Elisabeth’s ear. The youngest of the homunculi shudders and shakes her head, streams of tears marring her beautiful face.

“Ah, I get it,” Isolde comments.

“Focus,” ‘Seigi’ scolds. “You’re making a wish. Visualize it in your mind; conceive its completed form. The Grail cannot plan or design; it is up to you to guide how your wish is to be realized—stop struggling, you worthless thing!”

The words strike Isolde, who feels their heartbeat rise as they come to realize that, yes, this is happening. Straightening their face, they close their eyes and do exactly as told. It is not difficult, for it is what has filled their mind for years now. Isolde’s wish is nothing grand—they care not for riches or power, nor do they seek to change the world. They only want to correct the mistake their mother made when she made them.

“Let’s split.”



“Let’s be together forever.”

“Hmph, what a strange feeling,” muses ‘Seigi’ while his hand reaches for the struggling Elisabeth’s eyepatch from behind. “I shouldn’t care at all but, because I am ‘Isolde’, I am happy for you. Anyway, let’s just get this done and over with.”

Is there enough energy in the Grail for the fulfillment of that wish, no matter how small it apparently is? Can the people of Valparaíso provide enough energy? How long has this Grail being reabsorbing energy after being detached for its original home in the Pyrenees?

Well, the one in control of Seigi’s body cares little. If Isolde’s wish works out, that’s all good. If it does not, he still gets the Grail afterwards.

Elisabeth can only release a muffled cry when ‘Seigi’ rips off the eyepatch, concealing himself behind her so that the only thing that eye can see in the mirror is Elisabeth herself. Thus, she breaks. Literally. Her body cracks as if made of glass or dry wood, light seeping out of the cracks instead of blood or sap.

The last thing she can do is gasp. After that, it is all over for her.

At least, that is how it should have been.

(BGM)

Both ‘Seigi’ and Isolde gasp out when an invisible force blasts them away, as light so intense they might have reason to fear sunburn swallows Elisabeth, tears through the ceiling and rises to the sky like a radiant geyser. Neither has the reaction time to avoid a harsh landing, the young homunculus’s lighter body striking the bathroom’s wall before being swallowed by the growing pillar of light. The red-haired man flies past the door into the adjacent room where Elisabeth was sleeping, then through the house’s last unbroken window and all the way into the neighboring home, right as the entire house is consumed by the pillar of bright, golden ether.

“What is this…?” Not-Seigi murmurs as he rises back to his feet, all the while forced to protect his eyes from the light. Clicking his tongue, he begins to draw cuneiform out of a dot of ether gathered on his fingertip. His current host body is too aligned towards destruction, so analyzing this complex thaumaturgical ritual will be far more challenging that it has any right to be to one such as it.

“Isolde!” he calls out to the light, clicking his tongue at the absence of a response. Soon enough, he completes his long cuneiform incantation, which reveals the meaning of this magical emission to his all-understanding mind.

“Curse that woman!”

Again, he clicks his tongue as he feels the very human emotion of anger disrupting his thought processes. There is no real reason to feel anger. Even if the wish-granting was sabotaged, he only needs the vessel. It is a matter of waiting for this to be over, and then hide with the exhausted Grail until it is possible to sneak past the borders of the Singularity.

Then the geyser, which had been spreading into the sky like golden kudzu, abruptly reverts its course and pours itself back down and then outwards like a flood of liquid sunlight. ‘Seigi’ is denied even the thought of fleeing the deluge. It is bathed in the light, which is in fact a mere shadow on the cave wall that is this world. The true light is invisible to the eye, and so much more powerful, touching all souls without restraint.

‘Seigi’ knows this, even if it is not of itself. It knows love because Isolde and Seigi Nomikata both know love. Yet, neither of the two know this overwhelming, smothering, diminishing love. A love that, through no fault of its own, can destroy lives and souls.

Baby birds are supposed to spread their wings and fly off the nest. Children are supposed to leave their parents and build their own lives. There is no place in this world for a love so strong and so perfect that it renders freedom impossible.

This is a meeting of two enemies of humanity: the enlightened woman by nature, the primordial invader by choice.

Spoiler:

You do not belong there, Whisper.
Show true wisdom and leave.

“Nobody cares for the words of a cowardly woman,” ‘Seigi’ responds with a voice as spiteful as his facial expression. “If you want to stop us, come here and know defeat and humiliation at the hands of a man, again.”

Be at ease, for I care not for the title of godslayer.
Your king shall know justice truer than any that could come from my hand, beneath the furious storm of Heaven and Earth.

With that, she is gone, and the one who is not Seigi Nomikata stands alone in the chill, finding himself soaked in cold sweat, for as much as it would deny it, her words carry the weight of fact. It knows fear because both Isolde and Seigi Nomikata know fear, but the understanding its entirely its own.

(BGM)

“I see…”

It has received priceless information, almost as valuable as the Grail. It has all the more reason to escape, and that would be possible now that the Grail sustaining the Singularity has been exhausted, right?

Yet, the world remains frozen.

“What is going on? What did you do, accursed priestess?”

It is kind of a hassle that it takes noticeably longer to return to the other house than it took to be flung out of it. He returns to bleached walls, as if the light had cleansed and purged both the frost and the original color of the wall paint. The house has become an island of purity in a frozen world, devoid of ice and of color other than an otherworldly white. The woman in the ice prison remains there, yet somehow, she appears less emaciated.

No, not ‘somehow’. It understands that the energy once claimed by the Grail has been returned to the frozen prisoners. Those already dead and gone remain so, however. Either Human God Enheduanna lacked the power to bring back the dead, or was unwilling to defy the rules of this world to such extent.

Stepping into the bathroom, he confirms that only the ceiling was destroyed. It pays no attention to Isolde’s unmoving form where the wall meets the floor, for there is a vastly more important element in the room.

“What!?” It spits out, all but stomping towards the other fallen form in the room. “Where is the Grail!?”

Kneeling to grab Elisabeth’s inert body by the collar of her uniform, it shakes her unceremoniously, without response. Yet, it can tell she somehow still lives.

“Why are you still here!?”

When people are disturbed and emotional, they become narrowminded. This is exacerbated in this particular individual, utterly devoid of anything, even a personality, unless it claims another’s for its own.

“Shit!” It curses, more and more of Isolde rising to the surface along with boiling emotions. It had perhaps hoped that ‘carrying the Grail out of the Singularity’ would be far less cumbersome, especially now that it no longer has a Servant’s strength. Even more worriedly…

“Tch. They must be on their way.”

The whole pillar-of-light-turned-flood thing was as flashy as it got. And then there was the ‘presence’ within that light…

Regardless, this being no longer sees need to hide and skulk around like an Assassin. That was only necessary because of Isolde’s unsuitability for combat, and it is no longer ‘wearing’ Isolde’s body.

No.

By this point, in this body, it has no need to hide anymore.

(BGM STOP)

*** ***

Her light knows not obstacle nor cover. It reaches everywhere and touches everything. It is not a light that stimulates the eyes, or activates the brain cortex. It is light that touches the soul. The likes of ‘Seigi Nomikata’ would not be able to escape it even if he wanted to.

You did not allow your father to unmake you.
Why are you letting your siblings do so, beloved Student?

The dreg that once was ‘Seigi Nomikata’ stirs in the depths of the mire of souls. However, it lacks direction, or rather the ability to conceive or follow a direction, just like a drop of water in the ocean cannot act independently of the whole. He is a drowning man who cannot even try to swim, or even recognize that he is drowning. Her light, powerful as it is that it can be perceived without senses, remains faint and distant, and it cannot pull the Seigi-dreg out of the maelstrom of broken souls.

However, this is Her light. Its presence alone changes the world, creates new possibilities, and renders miracles into fact.

(BGM)

“She is telling you to man up, boy!”

A flash of gold breaks through the mire, like a very violent Moses parting the Red Sea. Seigi cannot notice this; not that the attacker cares for something like that.

What Seigi does notice, though, is the powerful hand that grabs his own and pulls him out of the mire. Thus, he notices that he has a hand, attached to an arm attached to a torso.

He is Seigi Nomikata. He is aware. Awareness of the self is followed by awareness of a reality, intangible as it may be. He still is not back in his body, but if he has awareness, then he must be somewhere.

Darkness.

Now possessing of a mind, he identifies his surroundings as darkness; the complete absence of other things. In that case, who grabbed his hand?

Lily…?

“Hey, I might be wrong here, boy, but are you seriously mistaking me for my aunt?”

It is a world without sound, yet words reach him. With the awareness of an “other,” comes the perception of shape. These are shapes not of matter, but of souls. Thus, Seigi cannot stop himself from flinching and receding away from this soul, so bright and grand.

Spoiler:

“Aw, come on, don’t be like that. I’ll take it as a compliment. But I do not think my hand’s nearly as soft as hers.”

[Rafflesiac]

lmao it's always a lancer

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Against all rationality, I want to believe that Seigi's been bodyjacked by Saber.

[Lunasilverhart]

LANCER MY BELOVED

I'm not even going to question why he's here, I'm just delighted to see his pretty face again and also that Seigi's.... relatively okay

[Daneel Rush]

Beyond Their Sight – 12

Club Alemán – Rooftop, Salvador Donoso 1337, Valparaíso
Sheer cold (-30°C/-22°F)



(BGM)

Slowly, very slowly, Enheduanna opens her eyes. Standing solemn on the rooftop of Valparaíso’s German Club, she can do nothing but to let the warm slowly fade away, carried into the freezing air by the ocean winds. Just like everybody else, she was awash in Her light, and she heard Her voice. For an insignificant moment, an equally insignificant fraction of Her power flooded this little, isolated world, painting it in Her color. That was all it took.

But it is already over. She is gone, and life goes on.

“So, no matter what I do, you will not come back,” she concludes. Indeed, this seems the main statement one could derived from what just happened. Everything that has taken place in this frozen world earned only the barest of glances from the true Human God.

A long exhalation, quickly condensed into droplets set loose into the air. Enheduanna’s statuesque figure does not change its austere poise.

“…that is exactly what I expected.”



“Then why did you make a plan you knew was going to fail?”

A surprising question from the other person on the rooftop. The Herald of Fimbulwinter coyly shifts into the edge of her visual field, his sole working eye shining with childlike inquisitiveness not matching his face poor of expression.

“Because I was hoping for this failure, of course. Now that I know She only cares for those daring to approach her throne, I can confidently make my real move without dreading that She will intervene.”

“Ooooh…” Garmr sounds impressed, but Enheduanna does not feel herself any flattered.

“So? What do you intend to do, Shielder?”

The hound shrugs.

“Whether you succeed or not makes no difference to me,” he admits. “Sure, if Senta asks me to kill you, then I’ll kill you, but…I don’t think it will come to that.”

“…is that so.”

Looking down at the people gathered outside the building, her eyes meet those of her (former) student. His eyes bear some confusion, as is to be expected, not to the point of desperation nor resignation. So, he did not abandon himself to Her light and Her love. None of them did.

She must feel proud.

“Let us go,” she proposes. “The next move is up to these children.”

Garmr does not need her cue to follow after she teleports down to ground level, eager as he is to go to Senta’s side.

*** ***

Streets of Valparaíso
Day 04
Evening Phase – 09
Sheer cold (-30°C/-22°F)

Character Status

Health: Superb
Sustenance: Optimal
Warmth: Stable
Stamina: Superb
Magic circuits inactive.

(BGM)

“Javier, you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Do I look like a person who knows what he’s doing?” I joke, but I get what Liria’s going for with that question. “I did put some thought into this, if that’s what you want to know.”

We trudge slowly through the snow, parallel to the coast. It is not just the harsh environment that makes it hard to progress. We are just being careful; we know where that pillar of light came from, but that is already gone. We cannot dismiss the possibility of an ambush.

“Just to be clear, we’re not trying to kill the guy, right?”

“Well, yeah,” I agree. “We’re both kind of fucked up, but I’d say neither of us wants to kill Nomikata.”

I already have one life on my hands. I really care nothing for scoring a second one.

“Yeah, that’s the thing: I’m not really good at the whole ‘not killing’ thing,” Liria posits. “I mean, I probably can use my right hand to pull this ‘body-stealer’ out of him, but that’s just moving the problem someplace else.”

“Transferring this body-usurping being to Liria is not an idea I recommend,” Caster opinionates. “We have no way to tell how its powers would interact with the Servant Assassin, or the effect bearing with two spiritual beings would have on Liria herself.”

“That’s why you are a last resort,” I clarify. “We don’t know how strong that guy actually is, so I wanted at least one Servant with me.”

“And you picked us out of all the monsters back there.”

“I believe Javier is hoping for a face-off that gets nowhere,” Caster says. Damn, she’s good. “For all the animosity they have towards each other, neither will start a fight risking being struck in the back by a third party. He hopes Miss Maria will stop herself from attacking Archer or Lady Enheduanna in wariness of the other. I guess the same goes for Archer himself. And if that doesn’t work, neither of us has what it takes to actually stop them. Garmr is definitely our best option should it come to that.”

“The point is that the others stay safe from becoming collateral damage in a fight between Servants,” I add, pretending I actually thought that far. “And I think even that Berserker Wiligut would think twice before attacking that group.”

“Sure, whatever. I’d rather do anything that stay with that group of lunatics,” Liria declares. “So, what’s the plan?”

“The plan’s using my flame, of course.”

“Wouldn’t that, you know, kill the guy too?”

“Not if I can help it. I just…I mean, I wish I could brag and say I can handle it myself, but I can’t. I’m gonna need your help for this, Liria. We need to pin the guy down so I can use the flame properly.”

“…hmm,” Liria mutters, sounding far from convinced. Can’t blame her, really. “Whatever; we’ll see how it goes.”

“I’m not at all useful in combat, but I can definitely detect if somebody else tries to attack you while you’re focused on the body-usurper,” Caster offers. Considering the monsters that we have seen in the past—the spawn of Tiamat—, that’s always useful. “I do not amount to much, but I can assure you I will assist you in every way I can think of.”

“Let’s focus on not dying and go from there.” Liria says the darnedest thing with a joking tone. But maybe there is meaning to what she is doing right now.

“Liria, sorry for shutting you down back there in the dinner. I…that was unfair to you, but I didn’t want to—”

“Nah, nah, I get it, Javier, really. You needed her in the mood to answer questions and stuff, not messing with me. And I’m the one who took things too personally.” She shakes her head. “She pisses me off, but this is not about me.”

Liria looks away, at the sea frozen all the way to the horizon.

“We’re not gonna beat her with tantrums.”

“It is not up to me to judge, but you have nothing to apologize for, Javier,” Caster intervenes. “I still remember that you were the first who tried to run after Liria until Lady Enheduanna stopped you.”

“Really.” Why does it sound like she doesn’t believe it? “And what exactly did you plan to do when you caught up to me?”

Oh, this woman’s plain unfair.

“Hell if I know,” I say, hopelessly embarrassing myself. God, I must look like a brat, hands in pockets and all. “But I hadta do something.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, although I’m not quite clear on what she’s agreeing to. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s, like, we met each other so many years ago, but we don’t really know each other at all.”

Yeah. That’s exactly it. Nobody’s fault, really. Our first meeting wasn’t really much of one, and it was interrupted in the worst way.

“But still, I wanted to talk to you again for the longest time,” she then says, not quite looking at me. “I thought so much about you that my idiot teenage-self burdened my imaginary Javier with all sorts of unreasonable expectations.”

Her laughter drips with self-deprecation. Caster wisely puts some distance between the two of us. That consideration of hers really puts me on the spot, you know.

“I mean, you had already saved me once, so it was only natural you’d show up again like some sort of prince on a white horse and save me a second time.”

Uwaaah…

“I don’t remember saving anyone, tho.”

“You really don’t remember much of anything that happened on that day, do you?”

For many years, I didn’t remember anything at all. Courtesy of Lily, apparently. What I remember now…is just a mess.

“I mean, I do remember jumping after you when Diego’s dad threw you into the stream. But then I couldn’t do anything; I couldn’t even swim.”

“Yeah. That was very confusing until Lily explained to me that Daddy Alfons was using magecraft to hold me underwater. When you jumped in, you were caught by the spell too.”

Yeah, that makes sense. Not to toot my own horn, but I already was a damn good swimmer at that age.

“And when I was drowning, the flame woke up to protect me.”

Liria nods.

“Sure, the water started to boil all around me, but I suddenly was able to rise my head above water and move. The fire saved my life, and Lily fixed the burns in no time.”

“And that same flame released the Lancer Lily from the spellcraft binding him into obedience to Divine Enheduanna,” Caster adds, clearly pulled back by our conversation.

That’s right. A flame that can burn magic. Furthermore, I’ve already successfully repurposed Alambique to safely channel the flame. In that case, can’t I do the same with Ekhtros? Can’t I conceptualize not-Marduk inside Nomikata as a solution? And if that doesn’t work, then…

“Liria, you said you can absorb not-Marduk with your right arm, right? Could you then transfer it to somebody else?”

“Wait, Javier, you aren’t thinking—”

“I take it in and feed it to the flame. Well, that’s kind of a Plan B.”

“I don’t like that Plan B.”

“I cannot say I favor it, either,” Caster adds.

“Well, I have a spell that separates the components of a solution, but I have no guarantee that I can make it work on whatever Nomikata is right now. That’s why I’d like to know if we have other alternatives.”

“Hmm, yeah, I probably can, but I really wouldn’t like it to come to that,” Liria declares. “I want you to survive this mess, Javier, and I’m the one who’s got Servant powers.”

“No, Liria, Javier does have a point,” Caster interjects. “It is true he lacks the power to match a Servant in combat, but he does have something none of us have: the favor of the land. Javier, you are thinking about what Archer said before we left, are you not?”

Indeed, the man had things to say before we departed. I am forced to remember that imponent figure with the smile that suggests he’s up to no good.

(BGM)

“If you are a man, do not run away from power. The moment you were appointed the judge of this land, the privilege of judgement became yours and yours alone. So take it.”

I don’t trust him, but he’s right on one thing: if the Mapuche spirits decided to put this flame in me, they don’t get to complain about how I use it. Nobody gets to tell me off for using my right hand to fap.

My body, my soul, everything that is me is mine and mine alone. They might want me to burn everything and leave nothing but fertile nature in my wake, but they don’t get to decide that. If they don’t like me being more selective on what or who I burn, then sucks to be them.

“Thinking logically, I should just hide myself in the church and leave the fighting to the Servants, but I’ve never gotten anywhere by doing nothing. And I…can’t accept leaving Maria to fight alone.”

That girl doesn’t deserve a miserable death after exhausting her life bearing with Saver’s power. She might have come all the way here pursuing Nazis, but she should be getting laid in college and stuffing herself with all the chili con carne in the world.

“So, I’ll wield this flame, and I won’t let it destroy me. I know I can control it.”

Liria looks like she wants to tie me up to a bed so I don’t do anything stupid.

“Javier, you do know nobody’s expecting you to be a hero, or to one-up that Archer, right?”

I roll my eyes at Liria’s presumption.

“Liria, if I wanted to show off my superlative masculinity, I’d have come alone and gotten myself killed alone. And you’re not the only one who wants me to survive this mess.”

I did not even realize, but I somehow ended up stumbling on a number of reasons to live.

“I’m gonna help Senta and Ortrud live proper lives, and I can’t do that if I don’t shape up myself. And I want to respect Lily’s wish.”

“Lily’s wish?”

“You know she arranged for us to meet that day by the stream, right? She obviously wanted us to become friends, probably because she wouldn’t stick around in Villarrica forever. So, I want to do what we couldn’t back then.” I chuckle. “We’re both adults now, so it’s shouldn’t be nearly as awkward.”

“Not that I look like an adult, though,” counters Liria, who nevertheless seems a little bit happy.

“Haven’t you heard that looks don’t matter?” I tease. “What matters is that you’re old enough to drink and complain about how rough it is to be an adult.”

At this she laughs.

“Now, that; I’m an expert at complaining!”

Thus, we continue trudging across the snow and the cold with raised spirits. We need this, because only God knows what awaits us at the end of this road.

*** ***

Outside Club Alemán, Salvador Donoso 1337, Valparaíso
Sheer cold (-30°C/-22°F)



(BGM)

“Fucking idiot,” Maria mumbles to nobody in particular, watching in the direction the three departed, even well after they left everybody’s sight. “Trying to act all tough and collected. Should’ve just let me handle it.”



“Girl, you look like you can barely handle your own weight,” retorts the much larger Servant, powerful biceps bulging eye-catchingly just by crossing his arms. “A good woman shows confidence in her man.”

Maria overtly rolls her eyes.

“He’s not ‘my man’,” she corrects in a tired voice, then jerks her thumb in a certain direction. “He’s nobody’s man…”

Maria pauses for a moment.

“Unless you claimed him when I was not looking, Nazi girl.”



“You talking to me?” Ortrud responds instead of the frozen, bug-eyed Senta. “I’m a Nazi girl.”

The shorter Hexensoldat glances at her ‘sister’.

“Who would you say is ‘Nazier’—ow.”



“Stop that,” complains Senta after giving the other girl a mild rap. “I never cared for the ideology, and I don’t care for the Reich, either. And you also took off the armband.”

She is referring to the red armband with the Nazi swastika common to all their uniforms.

“It caught fire while I was fleeing New Asgard. But anyway, I just met the guy, but I don’t think he’s so full of himself he’d throw himself into a fight he can’t win. And say whatever you want, but you really look like shit, sword blondie.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, now there’re two of them…” Maria moans.

“If you really plan to fight these two,” Ortrud continues, gesturing towards Archer and Enheduanna. “You really need to settle down and gather yourself.”

“Listen to her,” Archer agrees. “You are not a challenge, at least not this evening. Do yourself a favor and rest some more.”

“Alright, alright, fine! Didn’t come here for a fucking intervention.”



“If it helps, I do share your feelings, Maria,” Sakura interjects, walking over to stand by the young American. “I’d have liked to join them.”



“Really, you two came out of the same mold,” Fiore complains, joining the other two women. “You’re still not at your best after your stunt yesterday, so stop thinking about fighting…whatever it is that’s taken over your friend.”

A distance away, Enheduanna watches the scattered conversations with an uncaring expression.

“Guess I should change back to my work uniform.”

A moment later, the elegant garments disappear in a cloud of motes of light, the air shimmering around her as she dismisses one dress and summons another from her hidden treasury.



“Are you serious…?” Maria gapes at the woman as if she had just done something thoroughly stupid. The mastermind of the singularity is not interested in replying, instead teleporting back to the rooftop of Club Alemán.

“What’s with her…?” Maria muses. “Normally she wouldn’t miss a chance to remind us of how great she is and how much we suck…”

She does not need an answer from anybody else, as she quickly remembers what happened to each and every single one of them just a while earlier.

“You’re wondering, too,” Senta says, noticing the thoughtful look on Maria’s face. “What she heard when we were all swallowed in that light.”

Maria grunts.

“More importantly, you haven’t asked Maria’s question, Senta,” interrupts Garmr. “Are you going to claim Javier like you did me?”

“Not you too, Shielder…” Senta all but groans. “And don’t say things that can be taken the wrong way.”

“Yeah, I was already wondering about that…”

“If you have time to be a deviant, think how the hell we’re gonna deal with Hilde.”

“Ugh…” The other homunculus whines. “Yeah, guess we can’t just sic Blondie here on her.”

“Maria has bigger whales to hunt,” Senta agrees.

“I’d like it if you didn’t talk about me like I’m not here, ya know. So, what’s the deal with this Hilde?” Maria questions. Sakura and Fiore also close around the two Hexensoldaten, probably realizing that, to a degree, this is a matter of their concern as well.

“Brünnhilde, the first of us ‘siblings’,” Senta begins. “She’s a rabid dog who only wants to beat strong people. And she uses the Five Runes Inner Chant.”

“I...think I read that name in the Vatican papers, but I fuckin’ forgot.”

“It’s basically Super-Reinforcement,” Senta explains. “It has lots of disadvantages, and misusing will utterly destroy your body, but the output you can get out of it is truly insane.”

“Hilde’s engraved the runes in her bones, so she only has to run her magical energy through them to boost herself.” Ortrud adds. “To be honest, how the fuck are you still alive, Senta?”

“I got some new tricks thanks to Caster,” Senta admits. “But now they’re not new anymore, and she’s definitely not letting me go after that. I’m dead if she finds me again.”

“I could just kill her,” Garmr posits. “I would’ve if that lion hadn’t gotten in the way.”

“Lion—ah, you mean Ugallu, don’t ya?” Maria muses.

“There’s no guarantee you’ll be around to help me when Hilde comes after me,” Senta explains. “You might be fighting Archer, or that Enheduanna, or who-the-hell-knows.”

“Brünnhilde’s Sorcery Trait is not Reinforcement,” Enheduanna’s unexpected voice echoes around them, in defiance of physics and her presence well afar. “She engraved the runes not to improve on the spell, but to facilitate its use. Compared to the other two living users of the technique, her proficiency with it is disappointingly lacking.”

“…I get what you’re trying to say, but why are you helping us?” A cynical-looking Senta inquires.

“Why not? If Brünnhilde were here to listen to advice, I would offer it to her as well. My favor goes to the obstinate, and to those who refuse to surrender.”

“Ok, then do me a favor and kill yourself,” Maria spits out.

“Is that the human throwing scorn at me, or is it the Dancer?”

Maria shakes visibly at the words, so much so that the other women look at her in worry, with one exception.

“It’s obviously the human, isn’t it?” Ortrud comments. “The Dancer or whatever would just chuck that goddamn sword at your face.”

(BGM)

Maria looks at the smirking woman like she has just revealed the meaning of life. Ortrud gives her a wry grin.

“Come on, don’t give me that look. We talked about you over dinner; it doesn’t take a genius to figure out your deal after that. And look around you; look at all these people on your side, plus the three who left to fight. I’ll be damned if we can’t figure out an answer to all of our problems.”

Ortrud shrugs.

“So relax. Take it easy. Don’t think about unnecessary things. If you’re gonna fight for all of us, then let us care for you.”

Senta, probably with reason, looks at her ‘sister’ like she cannot believe what her eyes are showing her.

“Ortrud, you…”

“What?” The other homunculus languidly stretches her arms upwards, her considerable bust pushing rebelliously against the constraints of her uniform in a pointlessly eye-catching manner. “I’m having fun, perhaps for the first time in my life. It’s fun hanging out with actual people instead of thoughtless mana constructs, and two Nazi ghosts way too full of themselves.”

Her wry grin changes into something livelier, brighter, glossier. Right then and there, within the cold and gloom of frozen Valparaíso, Ortrud shines.

“And just a while ago, that Human God or whatever and that hottie Javier showed me hope. And I don’t mean all those nice speeches at the dinner table. I mean something real, concrete; something I can truly believe and look forward to. And I’m latching to it like a lamprey and not letting go.”

Truly, her narrow eyes glow with renewed energy as she stares straight at her ‘sister’.

“Senta, we can’t die here. Not now that we have hope. So we have to deal with that Hilde, Wiligut, that body-snatcher or whatever, and with our very own creatrix. I say we can win. We have to win. Let’s win and see the world, so straighten up and stop acting like a damsel in distress. We need the Senta who fought off Hilde, not the one who thinks she can’t win a second time. We’re lucky enough to not be alone in this, so we actually have a chance!”

At this, Ortrud finally pauses, letting her smile ease down into something more sheepish when she turns to glance over the rest of the group.

“That is, well…if you’re willing to help. And, um, let us help you. I mean, you know, Fourth Reich and all…”

The other women need a moment to process this Ortrud. Sakura is the first to offer a response.

“I mean, yes, the uniform looks like what Nazis wore, but I don’t see any actual Nazi symbols anywhere on it.”

“Indeed,” Fiore adds, effortlessly reading Sakura’s thoughts. “Eclectic fashion sense aside, I don’t see how having you join us in this fight would hurt my political or moral sensitivities.”

After that, eyes inevitably fall on Maria, who just rolls her eyes.

“I already made peace with Senta. I guess I can bear with louder, pornier Senta.”

“I would use ‘livelier’ and ‘sexier’, but whatever,” Ortrud laughingly retorts.

“Ortrud.”

Senta’s sharp features enhance her seriousness.

“This got something to do with Javier pulling you aside for a minute before he left. What the hell did he tell you?”

Ortrud’s grin does not grow wider because it can’t.

“I’ll let him tell you when he comes back. If you want his cock now, when you hear what he’s got to say you’ll be begging him to let you swallow.”

There is no holding back Archer’s laughter after that. Fiore can only offer a look of compassion to the mortified Senta before glaring at Miss Edelfelt by her side who, unlike Archer, can conceal her utmost amusement behind a veil of demure veneer.

“Yeah, roflmao or whatever, but if we’re not gonna kill each other, can’t we go inside or something? I may be a Servant, but it’s still fucking cold out here.”

Maria is the voice of reason for a change.

*** ***

(BGM)

“…who…?”

“Haa…I guess recognizing me at a glance is to much asking four thousand years later,” complains the man in good spirits. Seigi groggily follows his mighty figure, the only thing entering his awareness in the profound, all-devouring darkness. They walk towards the ever-distant golden light, the only thing that gives them a sense of direction amidst nothingness.

“Naram-Sin, King of Sumer and Akkad, Master of the Four Quarters and Lord of All,” the man then says. “But I guess you can call me Lancer.”

The idea called ‘Servant’ strikes Seigi’s soul and makes him shudder. A Servant. He…vaguely remembers that. He should know what that means. At least, the complete him should.

“Why…?” Seigi’s voice barely exists, just like the man himself. Devoid of body, his soul almost swallowed into the depths of the metaphysical mire crafted by Hiro Nomikata, Seigi Nomikata barely exists as a human being. It is only a slight exaggeration to say the current Seigi is defined mostly by Lancer’s awareness of his self.

“I’ll be honest with you, boy; I have no idea,” Lancer confesses. “Never cared much for the nuances of matters mystical; I had a small army of priests and other specialists to handle such things for me.”

He pauses.

“And then they made things more difficult with their mistakes until my venerable aunt showed up to fix things. No wonder the empire fell apart after we were gone. Ha-ha!”

The mighty man laughs, as if relishing in the fact that his kingdom fell apart without his guidance.

“Well, if I may make a guess nevertheless, I would bet my treasure on my aforementioned aunt being behind this,” Lancer then continues. “And I mean the real one, still alive somewhere nobody can reach her. Not the lesser reproduction prancing around in that frozen city.”

The more Lancer speaks, the more concepts and ideas appear as evanescent images in the dark world. They appear like reflections on soap bubbles, and just as quickly go away, lingering just enough to trigger vague flashes of remembrance.

If he had more knowledgeable minds to discuss the matter with, Seigi might conjecture something about the outpouring of the Saint Graph released as a consequence of the forceful emptying of the Grail reaching out to the vessel most receptive of such spiritual remnants. However, that sounds like an accidental phenomenon, and it is hard to believe any of this is coincidental.

“Yes, if I am here, it is because she wants me here. And she expects me to figure out why.” He shrugs lightheartedly. “Guess I should take it as a statement of her trust in my wisdom.”

However, he then pauses and grins wryly.

“Or that it’s so obvious even her dumbass of a nephew can figure it out. Anyway, I don’t know if she just wants me to help you out of here, but it is better than the alternative, so let’s go with that for now.”

“Is it…” Seigi mutters, still not quite there. Not quite himself. They are the words of an eroded man, who has so much taken from him that it makes complete sense for him to question his existence. The words remove the good humor from Lancer’s face.

“Hmm, you really don’t have much going for you…”

He looks over Seigi’s shoulder at the darkness from whence they came.

“Or rather, you are full of lots of unnecessary things.” Just remembering the mire from which he pulled Seigi out makes him sigh. “I don’t care about your circumstances, or how you ended up like this. It just seems like a waste of an otherwise perfectly healthy and strong man.”

It makes only sense for this king to appraise people as assets. A good man is a man who can work and/or fight.

“With that said, if it was somebody else who filled you with all those dregs, I would be more than pleased to tear him apart with my weapon. Or her, I don’t know; there were plenty of decently powerful witches in my era, too.”

During this entire not-quite-monologue, Seigi is just…there. The words simply flow past him like air without substance. Dazed is not the right word to describe him. Rather, he is absent. There is not enough left of himself to regard Lancer beyond the most basic awareness of his existence, and that may be only because Lancer’s existence is particularly large, even as the remnant of a Servant already defeated. Seigi Nomikata is like a tiny soap bubble, that may fade away with the slightest force.

“Focus, boy!” Lancer commands with the voice of a king. “Remember why you still stand! There must be a reason; something in your life that makes it worth living! Do you have children still in need of nurturing and education? Do you have a woman you call wife? Do you have a mission, a fight left to be fought, an enemy left to be vanquished? Remember!”

More bubbles swirl around the broken man, fuzzy images reflected on their evanescent surfaces. Visions of family, of that which he has struggled to assemble in defiance of loathsome past. He, who refused to follow in his father’s footsteps, who struggled so hard to overcome trauma and a fear of love.

Even outside the mire, the beckoning cries of those unliving siblings imprisoned in Seigi’s body are still like piranhas gnawing at his soul. No longer acknowledging him as prime amongst them, they desperately, ravenously seek the opportunity to reclaim the place in the world long denied them. Metaphysical agony brings tears to his illusory body in this illusory world of darkness. However, despite the pain, his hollow eyes follow the floating bubbles, like an infant inevitably drawn to the new and colorful.

“Ah…” A tremulous whimper escapes hopeless lips, and feeble fingers long to reach for those bubbles, for they are beautiful to his famished soul.

“It doesn’t need to be anything that lofty!” There is jolliness in Lancer’s voice at the sight of a response from the other man, weak as it is. “A superlative bed partner, a bottle of fine wine waiting for you at home, even the choice of a better, more glorious death! Happiness is made of such small joys, and there are so many of them to find in this world! So many of them for you to stop here!”

It is the lesson the liminal barmaid, she who is both Inanna and Dumuzi, hoped to teach the King of Heroes.

“As a human being, the one thing you are not allowed to do, is to give up!”

“Life is difficult. It is an endless succession of challenges, and it will at times crush you with unfairness. It may be at the hands of your superior or your subordinate, your enemy or your loved one, your choices or the choices of others, or even mere circumstance. Life can make you wish to curse it; make you curse the world and make you wish you had never been born. It will make you wish to give up, many, many times.”

Words somebody told him…who was it? When was it?

“However, this world is full of people who keep on in spite of the unfairness. People who don’t stop to cry their poor lot, or dream of the world that only exists in their minds. People who grit their teeth and accept that they have to face life’s challenges head on, both those they choose for themselves and those life mercilessly puts in their way.”

To never give up. To face hardship head on. To accept suffering as part of life, and seek joy nonetheless. To believe in the possibility of happiness, even in a world that promises nothing.

“We call these amazing people adults.”

The things truly precious to Seigi Nomikata…are not there, in the darkness of a world deprived. They are not in frozen Valparaíso. They wait for him in the bright, harsh, beautiful, and cruel world beyond the singularity. If he just could remember them…but he cannot do that if he stays in this world of nothing.

“Please…!” He gasps out, supplicant, desperate, pathetic. He is like a man at the brink, both dehydrated and famished, barely able to voice a last cry—the simple, obvious wish to keep on living.

It is exactly what Lancer wants to hear.

“Alright then.” Taking Seigi’s hand into his own, the Servant pulls him close and wraps his arm around his shoulders, thus helping the redhead stay on his feet. “Just don’t stop walking.”

“Sorry…weak…”

“Nothing furthest from the truth, boy,” refutes the Servant. “You have never been stronger.”


Author's Note: I promise you are gettting a fight in the next update. It's gonna be flashy, and crazy, and you know, the usual. You're also getting a hell of a choice to make.

[Bird of Hermes]

Enheduanna pulled schenanigans across time and space and ensured that Seigi would have a Lancer servant in the Grail War.

The poetic cinema...

[Daneel Rush]

Quest Master’s Announcement: I forgot to place a Save Point right before the “point-based party creation” choice. That’s fixed now. In case of a Game Over, we restart from that point.

Streets of Valparaíso
Day 04
Evening Phase – 10
Sheer cold (-31°C/-24°F)

Character Status

Health: Superb
Sustenance: Optimal
Warmth: Stable
Stamina: Superb
Magic circuits inactive.

(BGM)

“I believe this a good spot,” Caster declares, her stops coming to a halt. Liria and I stop a moment afterwards. I pull my winter jacket closer in a futile response to the wind from the frozen ocean. I almost can’t wait to get into a fight to have an excuse to warm myself up with the flame.

“You sure you want to do this? I mean, leaving you alone…”

“Weak as I may be, I am nonetheless a Servant,” Caster counters Liria’s worry. “You would do better worrying about yourselves.”

Unsuitable for direct combat, Caster has proposed monitoring the inevitable conflict from a distance, unseen by the enemy. Hopefully watching the encounter will allow her to unveil the mystery of this ‘not-Marduk’ or whatever.

“Now, Liria, if you would be so kind…”

For whatever reason, Liria seems visibly uncomfortable now. Looking at me, she makes an outright unpleasant expression. The hell did I do now?

“Haa…guess there’s no point in hiding things anymore,” she says after a long sigh. “Look, you might want to look away if you’re the squeamish type.”

I do feel an uncomfortable squirm in my stomach when she slides on of her stupidly long crimson nails down her abdomen, effortlessly slicing open her skin. A single drop of blood slips out the perfectly straight line.

“Liria, wha—”

…yeah, there’s no warning in the world that could have prepared me for this. How am I—how is anybody expected to react to a fucking cockroach nonchalantly slipping out of someone’s body?

Yes.

A cockroach.

It comes out of the wound like nobody’s business, crawling down Liria’s right leg to the ground. And it is not alone.

A dung beetle.

A snake.

A small frog.

A scorpion.

And flies. So many flies.

All sorts of critters pour out of the wound, far more than could possibly fit in there. The flies take to the sky, and the crawlers sneak into whatever dark corner they can fit into. I couldn’t stop myself from taking a step away from the grotesquerie, while Caster draws symbols of golden light in front of her, which disappear a moment after taking shape.

“Unlike Senta, I don’t control corpses directly,” Liria explains in a subdued tone. “These vermin are my real familiars. They go inside corpses and make themselves comfortable inside their heads. That allows me control them.”

Ah, I remember know: how the first zombie I fought acted like it had eyes on the back of its head. There was probably some small critter watching the fight from a different angle.

“I’ll be borrowing a few of these,” Caster declares. “Not the flies, though. I can’t use those.”

Caster departs without further explanation, disappearing inside a nearby two-story building. I didn’t even see when the wound on Liria’s flat belly closed again, leaving a faint line-shaped scar that is already disappearing in front of my eyes.

There must be something on my face that makes Liria chuckle darkly.

“Yeah, I know. Gives ‘filthy whore’ a whole new meaning.”

I don’t want to meet the guy who doesn’t wince at that.

“Liria—”

“Nah, nah, seriously, it’s fine,” Liria dismisses whatever I intended to say. “It is disgusting, I know. No need to pretend otherwise.”

Her voice is lighthearted, but I cannot just dismiss this like she wants me to. This is the Servant that was drawn to her without any catalyst. The way she speaks of it is indirectly a reference to how she regards herself. ‘My Servant is disgusting, so I must be a disgusting human being.’

She has lived hating herself for too long, all the while pretending everything’s just fine. But I cannot just dismiss or trivialize those feelings, because I was not really witness to her life thus far. I know all too well how harsh life is, so I refuse to be the kind of person who trivializes other people’s struggles.

“Liria, regardless of how we ended up here, what matters is that we’re both here. I mean, you can’t tell me you haven’t thought back on these past few days and think this is a good a time as any for a new start. Going back to our former lives after something like this feels almost like an insult.”

Another tired sigh and half-hearted chuckle. This is a conversation she doesn’t enjoy, but I’m not letting her run away from it.

“Easy for you to say,” she retorts. “You have options.”

She shakes her head.

“I didn’t go to school, Javier. I don’t know anything aside from how to squeeze money out of horny pedophiles.”

She also knows how to speak in the worst possible way to make people feel uncomfortable. But she can’t take me out with only this much.

“Then you start now,” I counter. “You think very hard on what you want to do from now on, decide on who you truly want to become, and figure out the steps that’ll get you there. And most importantly, you stop acting like you’re all alone in this world. Because you’re not anymore.”

I have to make a face as I walk past her, urging her to keep going. We are almost at the (inferred) spot where that immense pillar of light first rose, so it is only a matter of time until we find…something.

“At least we won’t be if we make it alive out of this. But there’s a way to a different, better life, Liria. It won’t be easy, because of course it isn’t. But it’s possible.”

“How do you know that?” Liria counters back with a somewhat harsh tone. “If it were truly possible, then everybody would have a great life.”

This is really not the time for this extended conversation, but if not now, then when? Sometimes you just don’t get to choose.

“I said possible, not certain,” I respond firmly, almost scoldingly. “I have to believe my effort will take me to a better place, because the alternative is to give up and do nothing, and that just plain sucks.”

I catch myself before I let my temper get the better of me. Sinking my gloved hands in the pockets of my winter jacket, I wholly face Liria to make my point perfectly clear.

“Look. Doing nothing will achieve nothing, and doing the same thing all the time will never get you anywhere but where you already are. The only way to get something different, is doing something different.”

She should look strong, unbothered by the wind and the cold, but she just looks diminutive, even more than her small stature projects. Her posture, her lowered head, the shivering of her lips; it is all the very picture of defeatism. Or rather, resignation.

“But I only know—”

“How to sell your body; yes, I know,” I interrupt. I have to, for her sake and my own. “Liria, I don’t care if you’re the best, most amazing whore in the world. There’s only one question that matters: is that who you want to be?”

She’s tiny, so it’s easy to plant my hands on her shoulders.

“We’re not living in Lily’s time, when most people could only be grateful for whatever they had and deal with it. Our world may be shitty, but it’s a world that lets us aspire to more. But first we have to get that world back.”

I want to help you and all, Liria, but can you please stop making me say all this motivational shit so we can focus on the matter at hand? This is really not my style. Forget Not-Marduk; I bet this is the real reason Caster snuck away.

“The hell happened to you, Javier?” Liria mirrors my thoughts, making a face that almost makes me blush from embarrassment. “When did you become so…positive?”

Believe me, I’d rather groan and squirm in the snow for a while.

“I think…I just stumbled on a whole list of reasons to give it my all.”

My nonchalant shrug casually conceals the transcendental amounts of cringe poisoning my soul right now.

“You’re part of that list, by the way, so stop beating yourself up. We’ve got stuff to do.”

Liria silently follows after me, if only for a few moments.

“What if I decide I’d rather stay a prostitute after all?” She posits, half-coyly, half-resignedly. I really, really want to sigh. Instead, I shrug again.

“Hell if I know. It’s your life, do whatever the hell you want. Just don’t count me as one of your clients.”

“That’s not what I…”

Yeah, yeah, I know.

“People don’t choose their friends based on their job, Liria,” I therefore add. “Regardless of what you look like, you’re not doing anything illegal. Only…pointedly questionable.”

This of all things gets a chuckle out of the girl. Liria Colhuán…is a weird woman. But I guess a girl who has made a living out of being first-true-later-legal jailbait cannot possibly fit any standard of ‘normal’. I don’t know what strikes me the most: the mother that set up such a life for her, or the daughter who could only accept her lot in life.

For good or ill, the conversation ends with that. Nothing has really changed around us, but we’re pretty much at ground zero of that overwhelming light and magic phenomenon, so we fall into a silence as we prepare for anything. We’re here to overcome whoever has taken over Seigi Nomikata, and to reclaim the ‘Holy Grail’ or whatever that is at the center of this whole mess.

“For all the questions you asked me, at no point did you inquire about the Grail that allows all this to happen. Go, then, and find the answers yourselves.”

Enheduanna’s parting words linger in my mind. The Grail…Enheduanna said the energy taken from the frozen people has been returned to them. However, she did not seem to imply this has in any way ruined her own plans, whatever these may be. If anything, I am almost certain by now that Enheduanna does not need the lives of the people of Valparaíso at all. That seems to have been a Wiligut thing. On the other hand, the magic trap that almost killed me when I tried to melt the ice block was Enheduanna’s—or perhaps Caster’s? Does not seem her style, though.

Enheduanna may not need to sacrifice the Valpos, but she sure as hell does not care much for them.

It does not get any less surreal to watch the Servants, ever light of clothing, walking unbothered in the deep cold. Liria is a particularly scanty case, but any allure that may come from the sight is diminished by the grotesque, monstrous insect-like arms ending in wicked red claws. My body feels reenergized after being bathed in that wondrous light, but that feeling will only fade with time, swept away by the chilling breeze.

“Javier.”

“Hmm?”

“Were you ever in a fight?” Liria asks. “Before the whole frozen city thing, I mean.”

“…unfortunately.”

I hope my voice makes it clear I’d rather not talk about the stupid things younger me did during his cargo ship crew member years.

“Did you win?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“Who knows,” I respond. “I think I did, but if you asked the other guy, he’d probably say he won.”

Liria seems to find this amusing for some reason, but her restrained laughter comes to a sudden halt, her monstrous arm spreading out to stop me.

“Something’s coming…” She is frowning. “Really doesn’t feel like a Servant at all.”

“Well of course not,” a new voice, familiar yet different.



(BGM)

“What am I supposed to make of this?” speaks the person bearing the form of Seigi Nomikata as he steps out of a corner. “The fool bearing the touch of the native gods, and the whore. This is what comes to face me.”

“Damn, you really aren’t Nomikata at all,” Liria is quick to reply, unfazed by the brazen insult. “So, what the hell are we supposed to call you?”

“Hmph.” The man snorts, as if annoyed by the very question. “It is, indeed, the strangest thing. I should have been ‘Karl Maria Wiligut’, yet I was not. I should be ‘Seigi Nomikata’, yet I am not. Since I first reached into Isolde, I became ‘Isolde’, and remain ‘Isolde’ from that point onward.”

So, he originally did possess Isolde, as Enheduanna described. Well, it’s not like I doubted her on that regard. Though, he seems to imply that he assumes the personality (identity?) of the person whose body he claims, but for some reason he is stuck on Isolde.

“But, you’re a Servant, right?”

“Hmm, I wonder?” teasingly, tauntingly responds the man, his catty smirk implying he won’t reveal a word beyond what he’s willing to share. “More importantly, what exactly do you two fools hope to achieve by coming here? Are you here to slay me, perhaps?”

“We ask the questions here, pendejo—”

“No, you do not.” ‘Isolde’ harshly interrupts Liria’s retort. “Your insolence sickens me. I have no desire to kill you, but I will if you do not kneel and submit, right now.”

Now, how much of that is ‘Isolde’, and how much the spirit Enheduanna sees as Marduk?

“…so, what do you think, Liria?”

The girl just makes a “why the fuck are you even asking me?” face.

“Yeah, we’re getting rid of you, and getting you out of that guy.”

‘Isolde’ looks amused at best, contemptuous at worst.

“Really. I’d say I want to see how exactly you plan to do that, but you won’t even get the chance.”

(BGM)

Something changes around him, and a blast of wind sends snow, debris and mud flying in every direction. It’s starting, so let’s get my ‘magic circuits’ working—!

(Status Change: Magic circuits active.)

“Watch out!” Liria calls out as I protect my face with both arms. A moment later, something much larger covers my limited field of view. The guy is already in front of me, acting before I can react—

—well, not really.

The body-stealer jumps away as quickly as he first closed in, avoiding the surge of flames pouring of out of seemingly ever pore of my body. As expected, the flame is almost eagerly responsive when it comes to protecting me. It answers to the barest mental alarm, to the point I am not entirely sure I was the one who commanded it to action.

“Javier?” Liria says, naturally worried by the fireball standing next to her.

“It’s alright, Liria. We got this.”

“You got nothing,” retorts the man afar. “Do you truly believe you can achieve anything with that flame?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Not-Seigi is clearly not impressed.

“Spoken like a true idiot. Alright then.”

He clenches his right hand, as if grabbing a fistful of air.

“Get behind me, Liria!”

Indeed, it is air that he throws at us; a ‘clump’ of air with the force of an onrushing train. That invisible mass crashes against the fireball surrounding me, expanding on impact into a thunderous blast that sends everything flying: snow, frozen bikes and motorcycles, the broken doors of the nearest buildings. Every single window in this neighborhood would have shattered, were there any left after the big freeze. Liria gasps behind me, likely feeling cold gales brushing her from every direction. However, she has nothing to fear.

The attack does nothing to the fireball beyond pushing it backwards. The air not released in other directions is consumed and the flame, if anything, grows larger.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work,” I declare. This flame would devour a hurricane if it had the chance.

“Hmm.” The body snatcher is bothered by his failure. “I guess this is the limit of Seigi Nomikata’s elemental magecraft against the power of the native gods. In that case…”

I can’t keep up. One moment he is, like, ten meters away, and the next he is right in front of me, the air displaced by his inhuman speed needing a moment to catch up with him.

“Pneumaktónos.”

The strike feels like an electrical current—rather, a short-circuit that breaks down my body, and a flash of intense pain that rushes from my solar plexus all the way to my head, where it renders my vision pure white. The flame disperses like it never existed. My knees fail me, and I can only drop into a fetal position, coughing my lungs out.

(Status Change: Magic circuits inactive.)

“That’s one down,” arrogantly speaks not-Nomikata, pulling back the fist he sunk right under the end of my sternum.

“Malparido!” Liria shouts a terrible word as she lunges at the man, who retaliates with a punch that doesn’t need to hit her. The punching motion alone releases a second blast of air that knocks her several meters back, the surprise factor more effective at disrupting Liria’s attack than its physical force.

“You stay there, woman,” commands the usurper, stretching an open hand towards my face. “This fool can’t fight anymore. His circuits have been disrupted and forcefully deactivate—”

(BGM)

What a complete idiot. His own cries of pain as the flames swallow him are little consolation as every single inch of my being is consumed by burning pain.

*** ***

“Javier!” Liria cries out.

The aforementioned Javier does not get to explain that he uses his alchemy—namely, Alambique—to control the flame. Without the ability to use his circuits, the flame will just rampage freely. It will burn and cleanse everything in its path, without concern for anything, especially not its source. That’s just how flame is.

“So that’s how it is,” the one wearing Seigi Nomikata’s body speaks as he rises back to his feet, no longer engulfed by flames. Javier’s screams do not wholly drown his voice—the Chilean is trying his best to not voice his agony, but, well, he’s on fire. Furthermore, the same power currently consuming him also grants him supernatural resistance to flame, thusly stretching the torturous combustion far longer than it would take any other human to become a lump of dead and burnt tissues.

“The divine endowment is already developed to this point. It doesn’t need his circuits, or even his magical energy, to manifest and propagate,” says the usurper before harrumphing. “Well, expect no pity from me. Nigredo.”

He only needs a swipe of his hand. A dark wave of physicalized conceptual destruction washes away the flames, erasing them as if they had never existed. Only for one second, however. As swiftly as they are gone, they erupt again, granting no respite to Javier Lucero, spreading like ravenous vipers in search of their next meal. The false Marduk steps aside and around the man on fire, basically giving up on snuffing the flame and choosing instead to ignore it.

“Alright then, die in the flames of your own hubris, human,” he declares as he leaves behind Javier’s now silent, burning form, leaving him to his horrifying fate to focus entirely on Liria—or rather Assassin.

“And then there was one,” he taunts the woman glaring at him. “So, what’s your next move, woman?”

He pays no heed to Liria’s shifting gaze between himself and Javier behind him.

(Javier Lucero Status Change: Magic circuits active.)

“Surrender now and I’ll relieve you of that taint,” he proposes instead. “Or just let me kill you. I’m fine either way.”

Liria tightens her jaw to keep her thoughts inside, strongly clenching her left fist until she catches herself, relaxing that hand and instead bringing the other in front of her.

“That’s right, you won’t use your Left Hand of Destruction. It is the folly of humans to care so much for something as insignificant as a single human life, especially in an era in which there are billions of your kind.” The impactful words are promptly washed away with lackadaisical shrug. “Not that I’m complaining for you making things easier for me.”

“Do you ever shut up!?” Liria shouts as she charges with superhuman speed, blowing snow, mud and debris in every direction. However, this is no way impedes the body-snatcher, who catches, or rather deflects, Liria’s outstretched right hand with his crossed arms. He follows up with another wind-blasting punch, but Liria knows better by now and jumps to the side well before she can be struck. Using her small frame, Liria stays low, aiming next for a lunging tackle at ‘Seigi’s’ legs, but the redhaired man leaps ten meters ahead with a single step, the wind around his legs carrying him faster than his feet ever could.

“Javier, now!” Liria calls out, taking advantage of not-Seigi presenting his back to them.

“Wha—”

Unlike Liria, this man has no multiple angles of sight available to him. The fire serpent strikes him clear on the small of his back, sending him straight to the ground, rolling and cursing and screaming. This is the time Javier Lucero uses to stand back on his feet.

*** ***

(BGM)

This guy…really doesn’t think much of me, does he?

I’m a theosophic alchemist; a human alchemist, at that. How could I possibly perform any of my spells if I didn’t know how to control my breathing?

Sure, there was something else to that attack, but whatever magical energy he shoved into my body was immediately devoured by the flame, so that Pneumaktónos or whatever was at most a glorified gut punch. It wasn’t even a magic-enhanced, super-powerful punch.

More importantly, this is the confirmation I needed. The flame consumed his magic. Now I have to figure out how to do that consciously and willingly.

Unfortunately, we lost the chance to subdue the guy, because he quickly erases my flame with that power of his—rather, Nomikata’s power.

“Javier, this guy’s just like me,” Liria warns me as he slowly stands up. “It might be Nomikata’s body, but his speed and power are those of a Servant.”

“You could not be more wrong,” not-Seigi refutes as he brushes dirt off his clothes and turns to us, his eyes now devoid of humor and laxity. “As a wholly spiritual being that does not belong to this reality and its confining dimensions, I am formless and devoid of physical prowess. Everything I am doing comes from Seigi Nomikata’s magecraft. I’m just better than him at using it. Let me show you.”

Before we can think, do, or say anything, the guy literally launches himself straight upwards, becoming a dark speck in the grey sky of Valparaíso. A speck that suddenly grows much larger.

“Get away!”

Liria’s warning is unnecessary—the two of us throw ourselves in opposite directions as a veritable black meteor crashes on the middle of the street, unleashing an explosion of alabaster luminescence that unravels whatever it touches. Nomikata’s form remains concealed by his own magical power, so we both hesitate to go on the offensive. His power is nigredo itself; an almost flawless offense and defense.

Our inaction is a mistake.

The blast of wind like a freight train crashes against the flames wreathing my body, but Liria has no such protection, and I hear her cry out in pain as she is flung away. An instant later, ‘Isolde’ is right in front of me, having emerged from the cloud raised by his meteoric impact with the speed of a cheetah.

“Let’s try this again,” he whispers darkly, his fist ready to bring me down one more time.

“Let’s not,” is my reply when I catch it with my fire-clad hand and I refuse to let go, and not due to his lack of trying.

The divine seed doesn’t just let me fling flame around like a maniac.

Status Information

The harmonization of Pyroclastic Nimbus Manifestation and Ardent Beacon of Stars grants Javier the equivalent of STR rank E as long as there is a woman present and within sight.

However, his flesh doesn’t burn nearly as quick nor as thoroughly as anybody would expect it—he must have some small degree of resistance to the effect of spells without canceling them altogether like Saver does.

There is pure vitriol in his eyes when he realizes I overpower him.

“Let go! Nigredo!”

The blackness surges out of his body like my flame, only to be unmade the moment it reaches for my body.

“Wha—buagh!”

Status Information

The harmonization of Pyroclastic Nimbus Manifestation and Flame-Engorging Collation grants Javier Magic Resistance C.

“Alright, this is how it goes,” I declare to the man reeling after a punch to his gut. “You let go of Nomikata, or I keep punching you—oof!”

Nothing prepares me to the veritable barrage of punches that hit me like a pneumatic drill breaking through concrete. A moment ago, I was feeling all badass, now I’m whining and groaning in the middle of the—

“Urgh!”

Fuck, that kick hurt. There was no technique in that kick, just the sheer desire to hurt me. That was a gang beatdown kick, not a martial art one.

“Don’t dare look down on me, human!” howls the person in the body of Nomikata, before approaching footsteps grab his attention.

“I said…!” He continues, glaring murder at the two onrushing walking dead. “Don’t you fuckin’ look down on me! Nigredo!”

All but slamming his hands on the zombies’ faces, he engulfs them in his all-destroying dark energy. Of course, no matter how much he looks around, there’s no trace of Liria.

“Presence Concealment…” ‘Isolde’ murmurs darkly, before raising his voice to address my partner. “Are you alright with this, Assassin!? Do you intend to watch your friend die? Or have you already run away like the rat you are!?”

“Yeah, I don’t like the whole ‘assuming Javier’s gonna die’ thing you’ve got going.” I allow myself a bout of sarcasm as I rise back to my feet.

“Shut u—!”

Yeah, I bet you didn’t see that one coming.

His attempt at sending one of them blasts of wind in my direction becomes fuel for my charging bull of flames that rams him and pushes him back half a block away from me before exploding on his face. Wait, will I have to buy Nomikata new clothes after this whole mess is over?

“Liria! Send more zombies!” I shout everywhere and nowhere, assuming she can hear me wherever she is—

—and ‘Isolde’ is now right in front of me and poised to strike, looking mildly singed at worst.

“Be a darling and fucking die.”

The second barrage of subsonic fists he expected instead comes out as a very-much-average-speed single punch that barely brushes the left side of my jaw.

“Wha…buwogh!”

I have nothing witty to say, so I just punch him in the face.

Here’s the thing: those machinegun fists of his are not him reinforcing his body to make himself superfast. He’s done nothing to his muscles, bones, or joints. It’s all Wind magecraft, just like those blasts. It’s the wind that pushes and pulls his limbs at tremendous speed, like a marionette controlled by strings of air.

The moment he gets close to me, the flame devours the magical energy powering the air around him. It’s just that simple. Yes, it didn’t take me that long to figure out how to do it, because the truth is, I didn’t need to.

“Luminous Dress,” I declare. It is the name of the raiment of flames now enveloping me like an additional, looser layer of clothing. It is an alchemical technique that originally isolated an object, impeding it from mixing with anything else. Including ‘magical energy’ into that ‘anything else’ category is surprisingly easy for something utterly intangible. I think…there is already a natural proclivity towards rejecting foreign magical energy, or something. Anyway, when he gets close, my spell separates his magical energy from the space around me. The new part is that the flame then devours that magical energy. I don’t have control over that, and the point is, I don’t need to.

“Javier!” Liria appears out of God-knows-where to help me pin down the guy—mostly unnecessary with the superhuman strength granted to me by the divine flame. It does not grant me superspeed, but fortunately I can bring ‘Isolde’ down to my level by denying him his Wind magecraft. He also attempts to use his nigredo, but it fails against my divine resistance. To be honest, I feel like I’m blatantly cheating here, but whatever.

I like staying alive.

“So, now what?” Liria speaks over the man’s last attempts at futile struggling. “We can hit him and tie him up or whatever, but we’re not getting Nomikata back like this.”

“It’s called ‘Saint Graph’, right?” I respond. “I will try using Ekhtros to burn the Saint Graph without hurting Nomikata in the process.”

“Ah, really?” challenges the man lying face-down on the street. “You think you have enough control over that flame to do something like that?”

“If you have a better plan, I’m all ears.”

“No, why are you asking him of all people…” Liria retorts in a quieter tone.

‘Isolde’ grunts.

“Hmm…I admit, I have to reassess my original thoughts. I didn’t know enough about the divine endowment of the native gods, so I assumed you would be the weakest link, Javier Lucero. However, you have both Servant-level physical strength and Magic Resistance. That complicates matters.”

“Can we shove something in his mouth? I need to concentrate.”

I can always apologize to Nomikata afterwards.

“Seigi Nomikata would not be able to defeat you with standard applications of his magecraft. My first option would be to take over your body…”

Oh, please, give it a try. Let’s see how that works out for you.

“…but I would rather keep this one.”

(BGM STOP)

“…I just to need to reach beyond Seigi Nomikata’s limits.”

(BGM)

My stomach twists and turns, and my vision goes upside down. It feels like a sudden lack of air, or depressurization inside an airplane; a force pulling me inwards, and then exploding outwards, blasting me and Liria in opposite directions. A spike of pain when I fall on my side makes me grunt, and I roll a few times before coming to a stop. I need a moment to overcome the powerful urge to just stay down and wait for the ache to go away, but I know I have to get back up…

“What the…?”

There is no longer anything in any way recognizable as “Seigi Nomikata.” Instead stands a vaguely humanoid silhouette, seemingly made of an unrecognizable liquid, sometimes metallic, sometimes translucent, always iridescent, a hundred thousand colors that force me to avert my eyes before my brain explodes…until they’re gone.

The colors and light disappear in an instant, as if they had never been there, even the lingering spots in my vision gone immediately. But that doesn’t mean I can look in that direction. Every alert in my mind blares, urging me to not look at that absence of light and color in the shape of a person.

That, over there, is nothing. It is a concept we all believe we understand, until we really stop and think about it, and realize we cannot understand it.

KNEEL.

It is not its voice. It is an artificial assembly of mechanical pressure waves all around me. That thing has no mouth; how could it possibly speak? No, this is just more of Nomikata’s Wind magecraft.

KNEEL, WORTHLESS MORTALS OF A WORTHLESS WORLD.

“Fuck you!” I hear Liria shout somewhere away from me. This is followed by an indescribable rumbling, like thunder mixed with a pressure cooker with a car crash, yet neither sound is quite accurate and does not quite mix together with the others. Whatever it was, it makes Liria cry out.

“Liria—!”

My own cry is interrupted by a new sound like nothing else in this world—an impossible, eldritch admixture of snapping a bird’s neck, the popping of a wine bottle, and the breaking of an oil tanker’s hull that just doesn’t sound quite right. It strikes my raiment of flames just as uselessly as the previous wind blasts. However, as if mocking the natural laws of this world, this blasphemous, otherworldly thunder precedes the flash of black lightning that meets ignoble end in the ngen’s flames.

The concussive blast stuns, so that the target can’t dodge the black arrow of not-really-lightning. There’s the trick.

KNEEL BEFORE THAT WHICH IS OLDER THAN EVERYTHING.

“Liria!” I call out again, in constant movement because that thing really doesn’t like any voices other than its own. “Are you alive!?”

“Somehow!” She responds from somewhere I can’t see. “Don’t stop moving!”

She doesn’t need to tell me that. The street has become a garden of black streaks like roots and branches spreading out of that thing in constant pursuit of our ends.

THINK NOT FOR AN INSTANT THAT YOU CAN DEFEAT ME, FOR ALL IDEAS, INSPIRATION AND CREATIVITY ARE BORN OF ME.

“Guess humility’s not part of that list, huh,” I mutter. Surprisingly enough, I don’t get attacked for my insolence. If anything, it does not seem like it is attacking anymore. The black streaks swirl and undulate around him like a garden of tentacles. I throw a fireball I know will have no effect, and it is indeed devoured into utmost nothingness but those streaks like ravenous black serpents. It can’t hurt me, and I can’t hurt him. So…now what?

YET, I MUST CURSE THE RULES OF THIS WORLD THAT IMPEDE ME UNMAKING YOU AS I PLEASE.

What do I have to make out of what this thing is saying? It speaks like some sort of alien, a thing not of this world. Is…this really a Servant?

The swirling black streaks accelerate and close in on their source, almost enveloping it wholly. It is a spherical storm of sheer nothing, a gathering of utmost annihilation. What is this thing? What is it doing?

VERY WELL. I SHALL DEBASE MYSELF TO YOUR LEVEL AGAIN.

The swirling nigredo falls upon the liquid (?) form like rapacious hounds turning on their trainer. They envelop it like a second skin, until light begins to seeps out of the impossibly narrow gaps between streaks. I feel a buildup of something (magical energy?), a premonition of something bad about to happen.

“Get back!” Liria and I cry out at the same time, just before the blackness explodes. I cannot even describe what it is that the explosion releases: it is a miniature Big Bang, for I swear I see proto-nebulas and galaxies amidst a cloud of scintillating darkness. Whatever it is, it is no more than a fancy show, for it crashes against my flame to be unmade like flimsy cobwebs.

Yet, in the middle of it all, it stands.

(BGM)

BEHOLD, THAT WHICH IS BEYOND MORTAL AND IMMORTAL. THAT WHICH WITNESSED THE BEGINNING OF TIME.

PITIFUL CHILDREN OF TIAMAT, WHO CANNOT FATHOM MY INFINITUDE: PERISH IN IGNORANCE.

“Javier,” Liria speaks, again appearing from God-knows-where to stand next to me. “Got any plans for that?”

“Do I look like I’m made out of plans!? For now, we stay alive—”

The body of indescribable substance pours itself out as a stream of iridescent darkness, a whipping stream fast as lightning that we have to jump away from. I feel my heart on my throat as the fluid reassembles into a human shape between us—my mind tells me this is an opening to attack, but this whole situation is so beyond my understanding that my feet feel like they’re made of lead.

“Let’s see how you like—” Liria begins her attack, but catches herself the moment the black presence of Nomikata’s nigredo surges out of the thing’s body.

NOT A WISE IDEA.

Fortunately, we can jump further away before the black radiance envelops the creature like a tornado that shrinks just as rapidly as it expanded, becoming to dark spheres orbiting the man that once was Seigi Nomikata. I have to time to warn Liria—the orbs accelerate until they become rings of darkness around the body-jacking spirit, and then they fire in two different directions.

Time slows down, an infinity between breaths. My life would flash before my eyes, if I had the time for such a thing. I can’t even afford to worry about Liria; my life is at stake here: to dodge, or to—

As if I could dodge this…!

Right; there was never a choice but to take it head on!

“HAAAAAAAAAA!” I shout out my determination at the top of my lungs. “You can’t fool me!”

Whatever the deal with his transformation, what this bastard’s doing hasn’t changed at all! The person using it is different—it might not even be a person at all—, but it is still nothing other than Seigi Nomikata’s magecraft!

“If it’s magical energy, then I can burn it!”

And indeed, it burns. This flame is not limited to inflammable things. What it burns is all things that threaten it and the land it is born to protect.

“I’m taking you down, right here, right now!”

I can stop nigredo with the flame, and his super-speed is based on Wind-element magecraft, so I can also neutralize that by burning the magical energy in the air around him. I just have to incapacitate him long enough to use Ekthros on his saint graph. I can do this!

EMPTY-HEADED FOOL. KNOW YOU NOT, THAT YOUR RULES APPLY NOT TO ONE SUCH AS I?

“Eh?”

There is no explanation. This wasn’t Wind magecraft. This was faster than the speed of visual capture; so fast that, for a moment, I saw it in two places at the same time.

It was all the way over there, but now it is here, right in front of me, so close I could feel it breathe, if it did. So close, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Its nigredo can’t devour my flame long enough to harm my body, so instead it just backhands me straight into a building, all the way into the wall furthest from its main entrance.

“Bugh! Gah, ack!” I cough and whine on the chillingly cold floor of a half-destroyed house. My jaw hurts, my back hurts; I swear my pancreas hurts. Fuck, he hits like a truck—now that was physical reinforcement.

Damn it, I have to go back out there; I can’t leave Liria alone with that monster—

…ah, shit. Of all the things.

I’m not alone in this house. Somebody else lies still in the dark and the cold, her form too shapely to be concealed by the shadows despite her dark uniform. Perhaps, just perhaps, the missing piece in this puzzle, if only because we haven’t bothered finding her place.

The youngest of the homunculus sisters, Elisabeth, is right there, mere steps away. I’m getting a bit of a free show, but I’m too cold and aching too much to have anything remotely close to a libido. I don’t know just how good do these girls resist this weather, but who knows how long has she been out and exposed to the cold like this? She cannot be faring well, if she’s even still alive—

“Javier! Liria!”

Just like not-Marduk or whatever, this voice also seems to come from everywhere as once, like some sort of omnidirectional ventriloquism. It keeps their location concealed, but it also allows our enemy to hear it. Unlike not-Marduk, on the other hand, this is a voice I’m most eager to hear.

“Caster!”

Javier’s Status & Choice

Health: Superb -> Optimal
Sustenance: Optimal
Warmth: Stable -> Good
Stamina: Superb -> Optimal
Magic circuits inactive.

Regardless of whatever Caster has to say, what is my next move?

1. Check on Elisabeth. See if she still lives, and if she does, whether she can wake up.
2. Elisabeth can wait. Let’s jump back into the fray.
3. No point in jumping back into the fray without a plan. Liria will have to do her best while I figure out how I’m gonna deal with that…whatever that thing is.

*** ***

(BGM)

Certainly, the Caster of the Black Sun has not been idle this whole time. Her impromptu workshop was not chosen at random. She hid in the location of one of Valparaíso’s scattered sex shops, for such establishments are by definition pleasing to Ishtar. Glowing cuneiform adorns its low walls, casting divine light upon the frozen merchandise. This is not magic she could wield in life—at least now without significant preparation encompassing days, if not weeks, of ritualistic setup. It is the Secret Knowledge of the Sages, ascribed to her by those later generations who aggrandized her for purposes both lofty and selfish, that allowed her to set up this little “temple” at ludicrous speed. Caster currently stands in the sturdiest, most warded sex shop in the planet.

Once her defenses were established, Caster used Liria’s vermin familiars to watch the battle taking place some distance away, and thus unveil the true identity of their enemy, the body-stealer.

“He is not a hero,” was her first conclusion, drawn the very moment she set eyes on Nomikata’s form. As the person who all but singlehandedly redefined the concept of “hero”, this feeble priestess holds an unparalleled grasp of it. She can see “heroism” as clearly as man can see colors. A true hero cannot conceal themselves from her eyes, by any means.

This effectively confirmed that they are not dealing with Marduk, for the great Babylonian god was most definitely recognized as a hero by those who worshipped him, and his brutal tale of titanomachy was recorded as a heroic cosmogony of the ancient Babylonian texture.

Caster gasped and offered a prayer for Seigi Nomikata when his usurper completely disregarded the integrity of his physical body to overcome its limits, transforming itself into something made out of Seigi Nomikata. The probability to recover his original body has become abysmally low. On the other hand, the more she learns…

“…something from before the world, yet most decidedly of the Babylonian texture…if it can only exist in the body of another, is it because it never had a form in this world in the first place…!?”

It is not her unsurpassable knowledge of “heroes” that gives her the answer, nor is it the knowledge of the world granted to all summoned Servants by the very same summoning system.

“Of course! The third is also the thirty-fourth!”

Her fingers dance to draw further cuneiform sigils: the signs of Air and Wind and Voice, granting herself the privilege of kings and gods to make her words heard across the world.

“Javier! Liria!”

Even if they are in different locations, she knows they can hear her. The enemy too can hear her. Let it do so. She does not fear it. None should. Enheduanna, too, is most definitely listening through her own godly means.

“I know! I will tell you exactly who this usurper is!”

Servant Deduction

* At certain points throughout the Quest, whenever the Main Characters discuss the issue of Servants, participants in the Quest can influence this discussion by presenting their own speculations on the identities of the Servants in Fimbulwinter.
* This time is a little different, however. Caster will provide the correct answer no matter the players’ deductions. However, should the players arrive to the same correct answer, their reward will be a better outcome for the current fight. Regardless of victory or defeat, success or failure, the cost to be paid will be lessened.

With the above stated, present your deduction on the identity of the body snatcher.

Wise up! Servant Information

Assassin of the Black Sun

Unliving Womb of Corruption – A++
A Skill that allows the use of vermin as familiars, including the ability to control them from a distance. Upon any of them taking residence inside the skull of a corpse, Assassin further gains the ability to raise it as one of the walking dead under her control.
To help them survive in any sort of harsh environments in which they normally would not be able to thrive, Assassin can house her familiars—which include flies, antes, snakes, scorprions, beetles, locusts, and frogs, among other things—in an Imaginary Numbers space inside her body. As all familiars, once released they act as extensions of her senses and her will, for she is able to perceive through all of them and control them at will. Assassin can even process sensory input from multiple familiars at the same time. Furthermore, all her familiars enjoy the benefit of Presence Concealment at rank A, and they all carry her pollution which allows them some measure of offensive capability, albeit nowhere near close to their master’s lethality unless commanded to sacrifice themselves by the effect of her Noble Phantasm.

?????

Independent Action – EX
The ability to remain independent even when rejecting the Magical Energy supply from one's Master. At higher ranks, it is also possible to remain for extended periods of time in this world without an established contract.
This spirit lacks physical form of his own and can only exist through possession of a compatible vessel (priest). Therefore, no consumption of magical energy is necessary outside of supernatural combat scenarios. As long as it is comfortably inside a vessel, it can persist in the world indefinitely.

Magic Resistance – Variable

• Isolde: E+
• Karl Maria Wiligut: D
• Seigi Nomikata: E

Grants protection against magical effects. Differing from the Resistance effect that merely rejects Magical Energy, this ability cancels the spells altogether.
At this rank, the Skill merely reduces the effect of spells. This spirit is a truly primordial being that should be well beyond the reach of any conventional magecraft. However, the limited nature of his unconventional Saint Graph diminishes the rank of this Skill. Magic Resistance is apparently interpreted as a ‘property of the body’; Its rank increases the further its vessel is from humanity.

Caster of the Black Sun

Record of the Original Hero – EX
Caster has claimed authorship of the first great epic of universal literature. To a degree, it may be claimed that her work standardized the vision of what a hero should be like: mighty, but flawed. Decisive, but conflicted. Caster has a deep grasp of the concept of “heroism”, and the attributes that compose it. This Skill acts as a form of Clairvoyance for exclusive use on "heroes", allowing her to figure out a Servant's heroic identity and qualities at a glance.
As a minor application of her Noble Phantasm, she can also augment the heroic attributes of allies in the form of boons of physical prowess and magical might, and diminish those of her enemies in the opposite way. This, unfortunately, requires some preparation. As most battlefields are not of her choice, making use of this ability is often impossible.

[Rafflesiac]

Hmm. 1

I forgot about those passives, cool to see them come in clutch. Also Luminous Dress, I always did like that spell.

Maybe spooky SAO dude is Ashur? Probably something more formless though, like primordial chaos or whatnot.

[Bird of Hermes]

1. I'm going for the "Save Martha" tactic, Daneel knows what I'm on about

Some deduction on the Quest Server has happened and this is the theory that I'm backing that was proposed by HBM this is just the thinned out tl;dr summary, explaining why I think this is correct. Smarter people than me can put it into legible words.

The body snatcher is Mummu. One of the Primordials of Ancient Mesopotamia, he appeared in the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, as the vizier of the primeval gods Apsû, the fresh water, and Tiamat, the salt water. and sometimes referred to as their son. Towards the middle of Enuma Elish, Ea locks Mummu and Apsu away. His name is an Akkadian loanword from Sumerian "umun", which translates as "main body, bulk, life-giving force" and "knowledge".

In addition to being the name of the vizier of the primordial gods and an epithet of several major deities (such as Ea, Marduk, Tiamat, and Ishtar), the word "mummu" also has several other definitions. It can be an indefinite pronoun meaning "someone, something"; as well as a noun meaning "craftsman, creator"; "a school for scribes, workshop"; and "a curved stick or beam", the meaning of the name could be interpreted as "mist or cloud", or could be understood in terms of the second law of thermodynamics as "entropy". Mummu is also along with being a primordial, Marduks 34th name.

This describes both the visage, lack of physical form, the face he is able to use magecraft better than his hosts and why Seigi was Ideal for him.

-Edited as it didn't upload properly and instead sent an old version, spotty wi-fi at home.

[SpoonyViking]

Nice crediting there, Hermes.

Well, my original theory was that the Servant is Apsu, but HBM's theory about it being Mummu is a good one, so I'll go with that: the body snatcher is Mummu.

Also, I pick 1 for Javier.